


happiness is tiring

by gingergenower



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, I cannot deal with 5x11 so here's season 5's afterparty, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingergenower/pseuds/gingergenower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Christmas Eve, Emma is tired. Hook is happy to go wherever she goes, even if that's nowhere at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	happiness is tiring

Emma’s hands are wrapped around a mug- red and gold fairisle paint, hot cocoa steaming merrily. The TV is buzzing in the background, and Henry’s the only one watching, laughing at something a Muppet says and piecing together a puzzle on the floor.

If Emma was honest, she never really understood what was funny about them, but she chuckles anyway.

Lent against the arm of the couch, she’s spread across two seats. Killian nudges her legs aside, sitting and pulling them down onto his lap. He sips his own mug of cocoa.

“You know, I’m growing rather fond of this,” he says, indicating the drink.

Emma rests her head against the back of the sofa, watching him. “I’ve never had it with rum before.”

“Aye. Your boy introduced me to the spice you’re both so fond of, but I’m afraid this is more to my taste.”

“Pirate,” Emma says, her smile quiet when his eyes meet hers. The fine lines around his eyes are crinkled, and his lips aren’t quite turned upwards, and he relaxes into the couch too.

“I’ve mastered your boiling kettle.”

“Don’t learn how to make coffee,” she advises, huffing out a sigh. “There’s no going back.”

Leaning over her, careful not to put any weight on her legs, he puts his mug down on the coffee table. His hand comes to rest on her legs, fingers tracing circles.

“Are you tired, love?”

She blinks, then nods. He takes her drink and puts it down too, and she cuddles closer to him, resettling her head on his shoulder.

“I never thought we’d have this.”

She gestured to the room at large: tree glittering with lights and tinsel; her parents putting her brother to sleep in the next room, her mother’s crooning fluttering through; the piles of presents already under and around the tree; freshly baked mince pies set aside, the air filled with their smell.

“But we do.”

Emma closes her eyes, too heavy to keep open. She feels him kiss her hair. “We do. If I’d known…”

His hand finds hers, fingers weaving together. “What if you’d known?”

Drowsiness tends to invoke honesty, and Emma knows this, and she doesn’t care. She’s too warm and pliant.

“I didn’t think happiness like this was real. I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Do you believe it now?”

Pulling her head away from his shoulder and dropping it on the back of the sofa, she looks up at him through her eyelashes. “Just about.”

His lips press against hers, for just a few seconds. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Finding me. I wouldn’t have believed it, either.”

She smiles, and nods.

A hand touches Emma’s shoulder. It’s her mom, crouching in front of them.

“Just thought I’d let you know, your dad’s offered to pick up Regina and Robin in the morning, so they’ll all be over by eight to open presents. Is that alright?”

Emma nods, but Killian speaks. “Alas, I’m always awake by dawn.”

“It’s bad form,” Emma mumbles. “Doesn’t know how to have a goddamn lie-in.”

“I’m an early bird too,” Snow tells him, and Emma recognises the noise of agreement he makes- he doesn’t understand that the phrase is common, but he does the sentiment.

“She cannot stand mornings.”

“I can stand mornings if I experience them unconscious.” She doesn’t say the words with any venom, but Killian kisses her forehead again and she feels his smile against her.

Killian and her mom seem to talk, but Emma can’t pay any real attention, she’s slipping in and out of sleep, and she’s aware of him carrying her somewhere and she’d care except she’ll go anywhere as long as he’s there.

He coaxes her into her t-shirt and she’s asleep again before he arranges the duvet, and sometime in the night she wakes up and she’s splayed across him, sleeping on his rising and falling chest, and she can’t bring herself to move and when she wakes up again, light creeps in through the crack in the curtains in her old bedroom at her mom’s apartment and Killian’s trying to edge away without waking her.

She grabs fistfuls of his shirt and tugs him back, his heartbeat thudding in her ear.

“Love,” he whispers, sweeping hair out of her face, “are you awake?”

“Merry Christmas, Killian,” she says, voice cracking and throaty.

“Merry Christmas,” he says, rough but soft. “Do you always fall to sleep so early the night before Christmas?”

“Not normally,” Emma says. “I didn’t know how tiring happiness is.”

His fingers play with her hair. “I don’t find it all that tiring.”

“Hmm,” she says, and he knows she’s thinking of their nightmares; his, still in that hellish pit, and hers, hearts failing and his dying.

His fade much easier than hers.

“In my experience, love, happiness won’t disappear because you enjoyed it.”

Emma nods, dislodging herself from his heartbeat for a moment. “I’m trying.”

“Besides, the only threat to anyone’s life today would be if your father should see fit to strangle me with tinsel.”

Emma smiles. “Why would my father strangle you?”

“I was hoping we would tell everyone today, but I didn’t abide by the usual terms of a proposal.”

“This is the twenty first century. You don’t need to ask for his permission,” Emma says, rolling her eyes. “He’ll be happy for us. You should be more worried mom will hug us to death.”

He waits for a moment, biting his lip. “Shall we?”

She sighs and frowns. “I left the ring at home.”

He feels him stretch underneath him, hears the bedside table drawer roll open, and he slips it back on her left hand for her.

“I didn’t.”

She looks up at him, and he grins, the kind of grin that would make her nervous if she didn’t know him, and the kind that makes her happy because she does.

Emma bounces up in bed, straddling his waist and leaning over him, lips grazing over his. “I love you.”

“And I you.”

They meet in the middle, kisses more a way of touching when holding hands isn’t enough, and she shudders, his hand sliding along her spine and under her shirt. She pulls him close, tighter and more frantic than before.

However, he slows and eventually breaks the kiss.

“See. Mornings aren’t terrible, love.”

“Only if I fall asleep at nine at night and wake up in your arms,” she says, smiling. “Shall we make sure there’s cocoa ready when everyone gets here?”

He kisses her, one last time. “As you wish.”

**Author's Note:**

> Once Upon A Time belongs to ABC, thnx for letting me play guys!
> 
> because let's be real for a second I'm not gonna survive until March if I can't convince myself this will, one day, be canon.  
> any feedback would be awesome, and thank you for reading :)  
> gingergenower xxx


End file.
